Stephen King's Heart in Atlantis

 

Stephen King's Heart in Atlantis

From the Back Cover

Five interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.

Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war -- and the protests against it -- had flooded America's living rooms for a decade. Hearts in Atlantis, King's newest fiction, is composed of five interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.

In Part One, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield discovers a world of predatory malice in his own neighborhood. He also discovers that adults are sometimes not rescuers but at the heart of the terror.

In the title story, a bunch of college kids get hooked on a card game, discover the possibility of protest...and confront their own collective heart of darkness, where laughter may be no more than the thinly disguised cry of the beast.

In "Blind Willie" and "Why We're in Vietnam," two men who grew up with Bobby in suburban Connecticut try to fill the emptiness of the post-Vietnam era in an America which sometimes seems as hollow -- and as haunted -- as their own lives.

And in "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling," this remarkable book's denouement, Bobby returns to his hometown where one final secret, the hope of redemption, and his heart's desire may await him.

Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Stephen King's new book will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave. 

Heart in Atlantis

Much as I have loved King's works and started of with Salem's Lot way back in High school when my friends were still reading Famous five, Hardy boys, Nancy drew and Archie's. Having dipped my beaks in the horror genre with Dean Koontz's and TW Wright's books, I went through Salem's Lot, Pet Sematry and Christine almost back to back. 

Fabulous books which I have reread over time. 

For the current book which I just re-read now after nearly two decades, my feelings and thought for the book have not changed and I have read generations of books in between. My love for King abated with this one and I have not read any of his later books reading and re-reading the older ones. 

Hearts in Atlantis is a mesh of 5 inter-twined stories linked over a long period of time. The stories have a common thread in the Vietnam war and for me it shows the author's comment on the war and which has is filled with socio-political overtones. So you could say that I walked into this with my eyes closed. 

I do not have a great love for wars and stories centered around it and here I was probably expecting something different and not a clumsy paean on deterrence of war.

The stories go from promising to weak. 

The writing holds great promise as is evident from King's enormous collection and is what forces me to rate a star for this book. 

My review most certainly goes against the grain and people may feel different but this is what it is for me. 

1 star for an enormous essay on the fallacies of war. 

Please do not forget to post your comments. I am an equal opportunity person so would love to hear your love or your hate for the review or book in any order. Please write what you did not like or whether the book was an absolute disaster for you and why.

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4984111324